As someone from the New Jersey suburbs, who recently moved back to the suburbs after living in NYC for ten years, I was thoroughly obsessed with the story of The Watcher. I feel more like I’m in a horror movie since moving back than I ever did in NYC. In NYC, everywhere is so busy and loud that the suburbs feel creepily quiet and dark. So, to say I was excited about the Netflix series would be an understatement. I even have an ex who lives near the actual house—657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, and I live about 45 minutes from the house.
I’ve read The Cut piece on the whole ordeal numerous times. It’s one of my favorite horror stories. I’ve gotten stoned and fallen down many a rabbit hole on theories about the true identity of The Watcher, thinking I can solve it. The wildest thing about the whole story is that there really is no obvious conclusion—it could be anyone who sent those ominous, threatening letters to the Broaddus family. Any new information on the story, which there rarely is, leads nowhere.
The story itself is terrifying to the folks it happened to, yet to outside perspectives it might feel a little dull. The Broaddus family bought their dream home for 1.3 million dollars in 2014, a six bedroom home with more than one fireplace. But Maria and Derek Broaddus, along with their three kids, never even fully moved into the home. One night, when Derek was at the house painting, he went out to check the mail and found a letter addressed to “The New Owner,” and it was like something out of a horror movie. The first letter was threatening right out the gate, reading:
657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out… Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children…Who am I? There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day. Maybe I am in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one.
It was signed “The Watcher” and immediately, understandably, it terrified Derek. That first letter alone would have been enough to make me lose my shit if I never figured out who wrote it—But also, I can’t afford a 1.3-million-dollar mansion, so what do I know.
The letter, the writing, and the whole giving themselves a spooky name, truly feels like something fictional. As a kid, I always thought every robber, murderer, and crime boss gave themselves a fantastical name because I read too many comics and watched too many horror movies. So, this thing that felt like a real-life horror movie appealed to me, even as someone who does not get into true crime. Other than the letters and a list of possible suspects that included nearly every person in town (ranging from “angry realtor” to every person living on the street), there isn’t much evidence which only makes it feel more horror movie like—The Watcher feels like they could be Ghostface or Michael Myers (although the latter not quite being that verbose). The only substantial evidence in the case was when they identified the saliva on the envelope as belonging to a woman (I am not a forensic analyst, so I have no clue how that even works).
So, when Ryan Murphy got his hands on the story, I was both happy and worried. I am not Mr. Murphy’s biggest fan (but if I ever get hired to write on one of his projects, I will deny deny deny) and have only fully gotten through three seasons of American Horror Story. But the story of The Watcher was one that felt like it would incredibly work well as a Netflix limited series.
The Saturday after the show was released, I was very hungover and decided to binge the entire thing. I was as excited as someone with a paralyzing hangover could be. The show works well sometimes and other times does not. I think the biggest problem going into the series was that I felt like I could recite it by heart. So when the first episode presented every neighbor as a whacky cartoon villain and added more to that first letter, I was annoyed. But I persevered like the brave soldier I am (I am not). I loved and hated how often we saw a figure run by in the background.
The show became very Ryan Murphy with the addition of the “the neighbors might all be in a blood cult” storyline that went nowhere and the John Graff (played by Joe Mantello) of it all. Graff was a character who I’d thought was wholly made up as he felt like a character ripped right out of American Horror Story: Asylum. John Graff was first introduced in the series as a mysterious man who visits the home and has a creepy chat with the fictional main character of Dean Brannock (Bobby Cannavale). We later learn he is a former resident who murdered his entire family in the home and then vanished. I rolled my eyes at the big reveal that he was this murderer—until I googled it and found out the character was also based on a true story. John Graff was based on a real-life murderer named John List who lived in Westfield, murdered his family, and then vanished. The Ryan Murphy of it all was that he did not live at 657 Boulevard and his murders happened in 1971—he also never visited the home, as he was caught 18 years after the murders he committed.
The thing about The Watchers as a series is, aside from spooky letters, nothing else really happened to the family. Which is for sure spooky enough for real life, but for a show? It leaves you feeling a little empty. The show gave us episode after episode of Cannavale’s Dean and Naomi Watts’s Nora accusing nearly everyone on the entire stacked cast of being The Watcher but the only thing we end up knowing for sure of these fictionalized characters was that it wasn’t Watts’s Nora or Jennifer Coolidge’s eccentric realtor character Karen Calhoun.
A lot of folks in town, both in the series and in real life, felt it might’ve been a hoax done by the father. And, in both real life and in the series, we do know the father wrote at least one letter that was sent to the neighborhood. He owned up to it in his interview with The Cut. But they never sold their story anywhere and took a loss on the house—the series only happened when the extensive Reeves Wiedeman piece for The Cut was bought in a 7 figure deal from Netflix.
So, while the show doesn’t really give any new insight into the case and, spoiler, ends the way the real-life case ended—with the family selling the house at a loss, never finding out the identity of The Watcher, it still makes for a fun, albeit a little frustrating watch. Even to a horror fan who knows the story like he knows all the lines to the first Scream movie.
Maybe one day while staying up late, after smoking ridiculous amounts of weed, I’ll crack the case myself!